Peter Schiff had a nice metaphor that likened Congress and the national debt to an overweight friend who procrastinates dieting.

I'd like to take it and run with it.

Our friend is 143 lbs overweight (14.3 Trillion). At the rate he is going, he will be nearly 300 lbs overweight in ten years. But he's got a new diet. And on this diet he will only be 263 lbs overweight in ten years. Sounds great!

According to the senate budget, they will "save" us 3.7 trillion dollars over the next ten years. We will only be 26.3 T in debt instead of 30 T.

The Boehner plan will "save" us a 917 billion, most of it rear-loaded. That means our friend will gain nine pounds less to 291 lbs overweight, but he will not, not, gain that nine pounds until the last few years of the diet.

(I am getting confused)

The politicians always talk about deficit reduction, never debt reduction. There is a big difference. Not gaining as much weight as they might have, but still gaining; and never losing any. Ever.

Being heavily long in treasuries and TIPS, I gotta say I'm loving the bond action the last few days. And it makes sense, even with all the default threats:

a) The Treasury has already says they will service the bonds first, before SS or military or other payments, so as long as Tim G. can scrape some coins together the bondholders get theirs.

b) Most mutual funds are restricted in their investments, if they dump stocks or corporate bonds they can only buy treasuries, they can't buy commodities. I'm betting a lot of funds are bailing out of stocks so there's lots of money being parked in treasuries.

As soon as a debt deal is reached this could reverse, but maybe not, if the stock slide continues the money might stay in "safe havens" until the market bottoms.

agreed mr. ferguson. Silver looks poised for a run. im doing pattern recognition (short term) and with all the p.e.s.t variables involved i see nothing stopping a run at 50 when 42.50 is passed. shit man the fact that it hung in there the last three days says alot.

On News International (and with it David Cameron) as 'rogue' reporter issues statement saying he was 'effectively employed' by the NOW and News International did pay all of his legal fees when fighting his criminal sentence (which supports his statement - you don't pay someone's legal fees unless you employ them normally, do you?)

And anyone who has seriously tried to lose weight and keep it off knows that this requires not a diet, but a change of lifestyle and eating habits that are orthogonal to what put the weight on you in the first place.

So, to extend the metaphor, Congress's Keynesian ways is akin to eating the government recommended Food Pyramid diet which is high in carbs, low in fat and the exact type of diet used by farmers to fatten pigs for slaughter. The gov't (person) is now bloated, lazy and insulin-resistant and minor changes to caloric intake will not do anything to fundamentally change their metabolism, ie. they will continue to get fatter and unhealthier b/c they will not give up their sugar addiction (credit). It wouldn't hurt to get out of the office and outside into the sun working on a garden or something like that as well.

What is required is a complete change of approach, moving to a low-carb, high meat/fat diet made up of whole foods, which will restore metabolic and hormonal balance and reversing the weight gain into fat-burning. The weight comes off, their health improves and their body begins to function as it's supposed to. All it demands they do is give up nearly everything they used to eat. This is the Austrian solution. It requires a complete repudiation of debt as a means to fund the government.

Debt-financing in business is a potentially successful strategy because of the Time Value of Money. If the company has assessed the risk vs. the cost of money (interest rates) properly then debt is a possible path to procuring the capital needed now in order to build for the future.

This model does not work for government b/c government has no incentive to either accurately assess the risk or bear the consequences of not doing so. If they borrow money to fund a project and the project fails, they borrow more. The debt isn't liquidated and the assets sold off to the bond-holders.

And yet there are those in Congress like Pete Stark that thinks this situation is the exact opposite. It should come as no shock to anyone that this mess will not be solved by these people, regardless of short-term fluctuations in the price of Gold.

Turd's weekly charts are well-timed. Let's look at the XAU now as well.

Doesn't look at bearish to me. The timing, though, could be better right?

This is a picture of me some mornings when contemplating the timeline for the arrival of a TEOTWAWKI event. Is it me or are others spun tight periodically over their preps and pm accumulation? I think preparation fatigue has set in and I'm ready to get on with it!! This theater we call gov't is wearing thin. I'm tired of the can being kicked down the road. ENOUGH already!!!

Governments seldom function as a business with a strong profit motive, so spending based on debt does not yield sufficient tax revenue to pay for short term deficits. Until politicians learn this there is no hope stopping governments wasteful debt financed deficit spending. This is why clueless politicians are robbing the tax payers thru inflation, and unnecessary taxes no matter what they pretend to do. The world wants to be deceived, and politicians never learn because they never take responsibility for their actions.

However, I'm of the belief that a slow slide into oblivion is what we will live out, not a single catastrophic event. I have said many times that as long as TPTB have ink and a press or are able to twiddle the bits, we will slide. Many believe that things will snap and voila, we will have TEOTWAWKI. I think things will unwind slowly at first and as living conditions deteriorate in the cities, suburbia will begin to unwind and rural America will then have pressure from the outflow of refugees. Rawles' "Patriots" novel kinda uses the slow deterioration scenario with the Bluehats trying to pick up the pieces after the fall.

Anyway, we'll see how this all plays out in the not to distant future.

DaddyO

Edit: Where did you get the picture of a GM engineer walking to work in Detroit?

I just created a new forum. I hope I don't get ridiculed and something positive can come from it. Here's the post.

I would like to start a new forum. I always ask myself what would cause my investments in PM's and miners to fall long term? As we are like minded, I would suggest we play devil's advocate and try to postulate what could make the metals and miners turn down.

The only theory that will not be allowed is to use the EE, TPTB and their manipulations as an excuse. Let's assume their end game is to let the metals run ahead of a currency overhaul.

Here's a first example. The Federal deficit does not get increased, the budget gets cut 10% and taxes are not increased (I know this is totally ridiculous). The result is the dollar goes up, unemployment goes up, GDP slows and tax revenue goes down. What is the bottom line result for the metals prices?

Yours is a good idea for a forum topic. This was never set up as a cheerleading site, so this makes good sense.

Although I wish you would call it something other than devil's advocate. Not to be picky and I know it's just a seemingly innocent and common phrase, but other than arbitrarily glorifying the evil one that surely would steal your soul, I think you might find a better title.

Hey, we're in pm's now because of what the evil one has advocated and his empire has executed.

Purple Haze, just wanted to say… I enjoy your comments and video clips… keep’em coming. With your informative vids (like the recent Rothschilds clip) we can forget wasting time on all those useless cable channels. We have a DPH-TV as one of the good channels on our Turdville News network… news you will not get on the boob tube and an education we never got in government schools or college.

Good comments and content make this place what it is… a great community to collectively experience the ‘The End of the Keynesian Experiment’. Unlike sterilized and marginalized network and cable content, in Turdville we get integrated, interactive, useful, unvarnished, unexpected, unreported, unknown and otherwise barely disclosed information that flows from all over the planet.

Here we have easy access to an eclectic collection of fine and sharp folks as publishers, gonzo journalists (hat tip to the Good Doc), opinion writers and hunter/gatherer reporters all mixed together in a multimedia conglomeration of print, audio and video. Visiting Turdville is like having an alternative magazine, newspaper and TV channel. Our very own TF-TV for all the unreported, unpopular, uncovered, unheralded and usually undisclosed news that’s fit to print/play. Need a tagline for TFTV and all that happens in Turdville during these crazy times? How about, REGARDING THE END OF THE GREAT KEYNESIAN EXPERIMENT...

Devil's Advocate is an old trope in Christian literature. It's used to dramatize the struggle between God and Satan over the fate of humanity. It was also institutionalized by the Catholic Church, which created a devil's advocate to argue against the beatification of proposed Saints. You shouldn't take it literally.

Omg...larry. I just read your comment and I was actually thinking of starting a video forum called the same thing pretty much.

No BS! It was going to be DPH>RealiTV I might just have to do something like that.

The Good Doctor alluded to how some or a lot of us seem to be in tune and on the same wave length at the same time. Amazing.

I know some people might look at some of the vids as a waste of time or irrelevant to the discussion. But like I've said many times before, for all the hand wringing and negative stuff I put on here I like to put a distraction up of some kind whether its educational, entertaining or just friggin' weird and visually bizarre.

maravich44, I can only dream of playing like the real Doctor J (and I still dream sometimes even at age 52). I love basketball. Wish I could have seen Maravich play.

Tom L, great extension of that metaphor! You have a genius! A complete lifestyle change is exactly what this country needs. I think we are going to get it, whether we want it or not, within 18 months. Anyone have some insight into a timeline?

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